Welcome to my blog and thanks soso much for spending a little while peeping into my world

... all from my little home studio in Durban, on the east coast of sunny South Africa!

"I used to think that anyone doing anything weird was weird. I suddenly realized that anyone doing anything weird wasn't weird at all and it was the people saying they were weird that were weird." -- Paul McCartney

Saturday, June 30, 2012

I have just added my last post as a Guest on the Inky
Impressions Design Team on the Inky Impressions Blog HERE. I have had a great time being here, and it got
me playing with my inks again, and I was reminded what fun that can be,
especially if they are being used on the fabulous Inky Impressions
rubber stamps.

I leave you with this little saying to ponder on ...

My mind is a garden.

My thoughts are the seed.

My harvest will be either flower or weed. Mel Weldon

and this little card that features "Gardening Lili", a fabulous rubber stamp available in the store HERE

The image, after being coloured using a variety of alcohol markers, was
fussy cut and pasted onto a scalloped oval diecut. I sewed on some
sequins and beads and attached it to an offcut of DP. A length of
velvet ribbon, a velvet bow and a three layer flower were added as
embellishments.

Here is a better look at the cute Gardening Lili:

I
have thoroughly enjoyed my GDT term here at Inky Impressions and am
amazed at the wonderful quality of the rubber stamps. So much so that I
highly recommend that you visit the store where you will find a
delightful selection of rubber stamps, as well as a whole lot more to
enhance your papercrafting fun!

Thanks
once again to all the lovely Design team as well as the followers of
Inky Impressions for leaving such wonderful comments on my Inky
Impressions projects.

To make my card I printed the image onto cream cardstock, and coloured with my alcohol markers. The nose and tummy are coated in Glossy Accents. The sentiment and button card are from a friend whose blog candy I won earlier this year and they seemed perfect for this card. I added two red buttons to accentuate the redness of the mouse's tummy.

Here is a close up of the image:

Click HERE to find out how you can download this to own for yourself ... for free!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

With all the heat of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the US 4th of July looming, I think the cute little critters in the Bugaboo Stamps store are being neglected.

Today is BE KIND TO BUGABOO CRITTERS DAY !! That's it, I have declared that!!!

And so to celebrate and bring attention to all the cute little guys, I have made an easel card with Scruffy Puppy - topper who is sitting on some suitcases that were a free coloring page on the internet - sorry I can't give you a link but I tried to find it again and just couldn't :(

Click here to see the other Oldie but Goodie images used on some really fabulous projects by the Bugaboo DT!

And here is my card to showcase the new image and to inspire you for the challenge:

Here is a closer look at that fabulous image :

I coloured the image using alcohol markers and a white gel pen for some highlights. Glossy accents form the shine on the watermelon, grapes and juice.

Striped DP and stick on star gems for the challenge requirements and a lovely green organza ribbon complete the card.

Are you now inspired? Click here to find the linky for the challenge at Shelly's Images blog, and while you are there, please check out the wonderful projects made by the rest of the DT! You will be amazed!!!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

I would like to share with you the card I made for the Color Challenge on The Outlawz, where the theme is "Where in the world are
you?" and your creation should be inspired by the colours of your country/flag.

As I live the the wonderfully diverse South Africa, I have a myriad of cultures to use as my inspiration and the colours of my flag are just wonderful:

DURBAN, largest 'Indian' city outside India. "DIVERSITY" is the one word that best
describes South Africa, and the Indian population in Durban have
contributed to the eclectic mix of cultures here. I have used one of my
very favourite images by Guylou, the beautiful "Fahri"...

I coloured the image using my alcohol markers using the colours of the flag.

The highlights were done with a white gel pen and some glitter flue was added for the bling.

The DP was some junk mail I received earlier in the week, and I thought it was just perfect for this image - all the ingredients needed for a delicious Indian Curry!

A black satin ribbon to depict the Indian ladies' beautiful and glossy black hair, and red gems to depict their love of bling. red is a colour very important in the Indian culture as it is traditionally used for weddings.

I would like to share with you the card I made for the Greetings Challenge on The Outlawz, where the theme is "Where in the world are you?"

As I live the the wonderfully diverse South Africa, I have a myriad of cultures to use as my inspiration. For my Greetings challenge card, I designed an image called "My South Africa Flag Dress" which has one of the Cuties wearing a summer dress inspired by the colourful South African flag. The image is not yet available in the digistamps 4 joy store, but I am hoping that it will be released on Sunday.

And here is my card for the challenge:

I coloured the image using my alcohol markers and added a black border. The only embellishments are the two tabs on the right. I purposely omitted to add any dimensional embellishments so that this card can be sent in the overseas mail without any risk of it being opened by inquisitive mail officials.

The dress lends itself to paper piecing and does not have to be coloured using the South African Flag colours. I can picture the dress paper pieced in different floral printed DP, can you?

For our Women's Institute competition last night I needed to make an Ikebana flower arrangement, and as it's winter right now, there are not too many flowers in my garden, except this beautiful shrub.

Here is my Ikebana arrangement:

I used a little square plate (3"x3") and added some glass pebbles and stones in the bottom. Three flowers, two leaf sprigs and a twig with some buds on it are all that it took (and about 5 minutes of my time).

I got a perfect 10 and first place for my creation! I am so proud of myself as I am not good at arranging flowers at all! When I get a bunch of flowers I 'dump' them in a large upright vase and that's it.

Monday, June 25, 2012

I needed to make a birthday card for a client who wanted it for her daughter's birthday. She chose the image "Prom Girl" from the Digistamps 4 Joy store after she saw my "Prom Girl" with the green dress.

Here is the Joy- Fold card I made:

I coloured the image using my alcohol markers and added a little white gel pen for the highlighting:

When i delivered it this evening, she was really happy with it and said it looked just like her daughter Carrie, with her light blue eyes and blonde hair. - Yippee - another satisfied customer!